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Fused Glass Stacked Plate – Planning to be Random

Making a staked glass plate has been on my list of things to try for over a year. Last month I finally got around to it. Rather than layout a design and color scheme, I decided to be totally random.

I have been fusing glass long enough now that I have quite a collection of fusible scrap glass. Actually it is a bit of a misnomer to call my leftover pieces of glass “scrap” glass. Glass fusers save every piece of glass. It can always be used some way in another project. So it’s not really scrap glass.

To make the stacked glass plate, I first cut a piece of black glass as the base. Next I went through my leftover glass bins looking for square and rectangular pieces that were about the right size. I placed these randomly, and didn’t really give a whole lot of thought to the colors I was using. (I haven’t met a color yet that I don’t like.) The second layer of glass stacks was done pretty much the same as the first. I did have to cut a few pieces of glass to get the second and third layers to fit. There was no measuring or planning in this process. It was totally random. The full fuse was flawless and I got the exact result I had hoped for. The slump went perfectly too. I love it when a piece goes together so easily. Believe me, this doesn’t happen often enough! I put the plate on my kitchen counter and had no intention of selling it.

When two friends saw the plate in my home I suddenly had two commissions for similar plates. Now this got me thinking. How do I recreate a piece that was purely random? I could study the piece and copy what I did, but then it would be neither original nor random. If I just wing it again, it may be too random and I risk it not turning out they way they expect it to. I decided to draw out a grid with different size pieces on it to use as a general guide line. This helped assure that I would use a variety of sizes. I used the same colors as in the original piece. This time, however, not all the glass came from my leftover bin. So while it may not have been completely random, I did keep the placement random and did not refer to the original plate. The result was great. Both plates have a similar look and feel as the original, and yet each one is unique.

And it is beautiful!! I love it and it looks great in my home. Thank you so very much Margot. My husband is a wise man to pick up on something I drooled over to purchase as a gift for me-lol!
It is a win-win. Thanks again.